If someone tells me their regrets, I can tell both their attention focus and their intention, but does that mean they are locked into that state?

They don’t have to be.Why not?State of regret. They could choose present moment acceptance? True, but not quite as cut and dry as that. Your intention is dictated by circumstances, yes? If you have the circumstance of being hungry, you have the intention to eat, even if it’s not your thinking. And your thinking is dictated by circumstance, your experience and education. You can’t think about what you don’t know.

If circumstances don’t arise, an intention will never come to mind? Exactly. This is why we say “It never occurred to me“?Yes, so can we control either of these things really? We can’t control them and shouldn’t waste energy trying.

Is there nothing that isn’t dictated by circumstances? Attention. It can be anywhere at will, in the inner world or the outer world, and its nature is such that our actions will always be in the context of our perception, intention.

I’m an inventor, things do occur to me. Perhaps my intent is not used up in standing my ground against the hoards. Excellent, and the mind is much more powerful than people think it is, but they never know usually because they don’t really open up to it. They just get stuck in the energy sink of regret.

With my attention placed where I choose, I also in a sense choose which set of circumstance impacts me? Yes. It’s best if your attention is not too far off your body center, but your “body” is much broader than people think it is.

Which happens in regret? It is exactly. Regret is a refusal to allow the mind to update. It gets updates from the body. I have a long history of hardship, heart break, and suffering. If I get the body update that I am in a safe home, well fed, and have good sources for activity/stimulation, where is there anything for me to regret?

Conflict, yes, it figures in, but let’s be honest. Conflict is unavoidable, and we have no need to initiate it. It’s reducible, yes, but not eliminate-able. Conflict is the dissonance between intentions, and it’s not always the moral thing to do to withdraw from a conflict, is it?

Or conflict is the pull of equal and opposing calls upon us? Often times, paradoxical intentions are only paradoxical on the surface. Go deeper into your feelings and it’s often possible to discover profound harmony, and this will refine your choices when in such a bind.

Timing differentials? Basically. In fact, timing differentials are the secret to all peaceful conflict resolution, because your intention will not go away. It’s good it won’t. It arises from the very force that makes you alive. If it was somehow compromised, your life would be compromised, but true intention is genuinely indestructible. It’s what allows children to overcome so much with so little power. Nature gave us a great gift, but we lock it away in regret.

It is a truth? It is indeed a truth.

Congruent? Yes, and congruency is the opposite of regret. When a young child is learning to walk, they fall and they experience pain. Yes, they cry, but they do not regret. They will try again almost immediately, and are not burdened by anything dysfunctional in this.

No ‘accounting’ of time to reflect it.Yes, and does that sense of time serve us as adults any better?

And if they don’t get that walking down, there’s always the investment in helmets. Yes, actually, and they can still like their lives just fine.